NEW BILIBID PRISON: PETRI DISH FOR MABASA & DE LIMA

The New Bilibid Prison (NBP), through the eyes of the public, has turned into a “white elephant” -- costs a lot of money but has no useful purpose. Let’s go through the following NBP value judgments by pundits on both ends of the political spectrum.

“The NBP is… a cesspool where booze, drugs, and deadly weapons are aplenty… command center where crimes are plotted and distantly carried out…” (Ma. Ceres P. Doyo, Inquirer)

“[T]he [NBP] and other national penitentiaries were both hell and heaven. ‘Hell’ because as of September, 708 inmates have died this year nationwide… Some…deaths… under mysterious circumstances. ‘Heaven’ because drugs, liquor, and deadly weapons were smuggled...” (Ramon T. Tulfo, Philstar)

“[H]ow could officials running the national penitentiary make money out of people deprived of their freedom and their money? ... huge graft money totaling at least P100 million is generated … for the operation of criminal enterprises inside and outside the facility.” (Rigoberto Tiglao, The Manila Times)

“[T]he [NBP] has in fact a big criminal organization composed of inmates behind bars capable of killing anybody outside of prison upon the instigation of somebody who has control over them.” (Emil Jurado, Manila Standard)

“Screamingly bizarre is the revitalized grand-scale corruption at the [NBP]… a clandestine mini-government… since there exists a rakish inmate-run centralized commissary selling beer at a thousand pesos a can, phones, and WiFi in supposedly one of the country’s most strictly guarded places. (Nick V. Quijano Jr., Daily Tribune)

Thanks to Mabasa case, everyone now can see the “white elephant.”

Strange to say, no one can see it at the “blind spot.” What’s a “blind spot”? Imagine you’re driving a car, you’re getting ready to switch lanes, thinking it’s clear. In the seconds before you maneuver, you turn your head to double-check. You thank heavens upon finding a car moving in the lane next to you. Phew, that's close, you say to yourself. It’s one example of the so-called “blind spot” in driving. The use of side-view mirrors makes up for us to “see” in our “blind spot.”

The Mabasa case put a spotlight on the political “blind spot” – De Lima’s over five years of detention. Let me explain using another metaphor – a petri dish – a shallow dish that biologists use to cultivate microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, and molds. Interestingly, the same petri dish metaphor was used by the Cambridge Analytica (CA) whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, who revealed that PH was a perfect [election petri dish] for testing CA’s manipulation techniques and propaganda technology due to: PH’s questionable rule of law, high social media usage, and corrupt politicians.

NBP today is like a petri dish – instead of bacteria, yeasts, and molds, or Wylie’s disinformation, fake news, and trolls -- corrupt prison officials and inmates are “cultured” in drugs, liquor, and deadly weapons.

       De Lima’s detention is a “blind spot” because the whole justice system seems can’t see the connection between the NBP as a petri dish and De Lima’s trumped-up charges.

Three key witnesses retracted already their statements which led to De Lima’s arrest. “I am really sorry,” former BuCor chief Rafael Ragos told De Lima. He testified that he implicated her in the drug trade in 2016 because he feared for his safety and that of his family at a time when the police were killing thousands of people.

Likewise, confessed drug trader Kerwin Espinosa retracted his allegations that connected De Lima to NBP’s illegal drug business. Also, according to his camp, Ronnie Dayan’s statements were made “under duress and without the benefit of counsel.”

The wheeling and dealing of the key witnesses against De Lima are like the cultivation of microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, and molds in a petri dish called New Bilibid Prison.

What more does DOJ Sec. Remulla need to satisfy his adopted principle of “totality” of all the facts given by all witnesses and all the circumstances? Over her continued detention and deprivation of basic amenities, De Lima said, “Up to the end of his term, Secretary Guevarra is minded to stand by the lies and manufactured evidence of the Duterte government, not wanting to displease his principal. He is, after all, Duterte’s alter ego. Never mind justice. Never mind fair play. Never mind that an innocent person was kept in jail for the past five years, and counting, without real evidence except for the lies of mostly convicted felons.”

The whole world is watching. PBBM knows full well the implication of global notice gleaned from the intent of his travel bug. A chunk of the world which PH should regard highly is the EU. A case in point, the European Maritime Safety Administration’s latest PH audit found shortcomings and grievances including a lack of training equipment and inconsistencies in teaching and assessment. Fifty thousand Filipino seafarers have been warned of losing their jobs subsequently slicing off a bundle from PH $6.38 billion annual seafaring economic haul if PH does not comply with the Standards of Training, Certification, and Watch-keeping requirements -- the EU has let PH off the hook for many years now.

Although the EU has refrained from imposing a ban on Filipino seafarers as reported lately, it still has kept a Damocles sword of holding trade privileges hanging over PH head while keeping watch on our country’s human rights situation. The EU’s statements are consequential when it called “for the immediate release of Senator Leila M. De Lima” and “to drop all politically motivated charges against her.”

So far our justice system’s inaction to De Lima’s case, despite having gotten an overload of the unthinkable NBP corruption, could only convey this impression -- our justice system is in crisis. Like a person in crisis, it may still be in a first-stage shock after having seen the NBP’s corrupted innards turned inside out.

This interesting story may paint a picture of the impact of such shock. Oliver Sacks, a neurologist, told the case of a fifty-year-old man, Virgil, blind from birth. Following a successful eye operation, suddenly, he could see after a half-century of blindness. Strange to say, he had no idea what he was seeing.  Although his eyes had captured the image of an object in front of him, his brain did not know how to make sense of the visual information it was getting. Virgil could not differentiate between a man and a gorilla.

Could our justice system be like that? Upon suddenly seeing a swarm of shocking images of NBP as a “cesspool of corruption,” like Virgil, it didn't seem to know how to make sense of it all.

Why can’t our justice system relate the latest startling NBP corruption revelation to the trumped-up charges of De Lima? Turning into an “elephant in the room,” De Lima’s detention has become a justice-delayed-justice-denied case of “an innocent person kept in jail for the past five years, and counting, without real evidence except the lies of mostly convicted felons” – not unlike the microorganisms cultivated in the petri dish called the New Bilibid Prison.

The Mabasa case has put a spotlight on NBP – as an “800-pound gorilla,” a “command center where crimes are plotted,” a “big criminal organization” -- of “inmates behind bars capable of killing [falsely testifying against De Lima was child’s play] anybody outside of prison upon the instigation of somebody who has control over them.”

Could this whole shebang be a mere “willful blindness” in which our justice system could not differentiate between the rule of law and the “rule of man”?

                                             The Dangers of "Willful Blindness"